Mourners paused in front of the plain wooden coffin, guarded by artists and colleagues of the former dissident, to bow, and some laid flowers. In a nod to Havel's theatrical background the coffin was placed on a stage in a Prague cultural centre.

His wife Dagmar, dressed in black, who was with him when he died, placed a bunch of red roses on her late husband's coffin.

"When I heard about his death I cried," said Jiri Moucka, one of the constant stream of mourners. "I owe him so much. He saved us from the mess we had to live in. I had to come here." Zuzana Hronova, from the eastern town of Pardubice, brought her two young children to Prague.

"He was a hero for me since my childhood," she said. "One day I will share this experience with my children. It would be great for them to have such a hero but I can't see anyone who could replace him now."

On Sunday night in Prague's Wenceslas Square, the place that 22 years ago was the epicentre of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, thousands gathered to mourn his passing, while in towns and villages across the country, people having been laying candles and flowers in Havel's memory.

The former Czech president died on Sunday morning from a respiratory illness that had plagued his health for years. According to Tomas Bouzek, his doctor, Havel had awoken early in the morning but began to feel unwell and returned to bed to rest. He never woke up and died at 10:15.

Preparations are under way for a full state funeral, the first in the history of the Czech Republic, which is expected to be held on Friday in Prague's St Vitus Cathedral.